Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T06:41:53.494Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Societal Multilingualism

from Part One - Multilingualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2022

Salikoko Mufwene
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Anna Maria Escobar
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Get access

Summary

Societal multilingualism comes about in a number of ways, virtually all of them a result of cross-cultural contact and social necessity. It can have a long-term existence where – for example – political union has brought different language communities under one roof. It can be less permanent in others, as in situations where patterns of migration and assimilation lead, over time, to language erosion. Multilingualism can also reflect the simultaneous existence of varieties of greater and lesser prestige. It can have a simple de facto status, or it may reflect official or legislated policies at state or regional levels. Relatedly, multilingualism may arise “naturally” and without explicit instruction, or it may be a product of more formal educational undertakings. Multilingual capabilities may exist for instrumental communicative reasons, or they may be sustained through powerful symbolic language-and-identity associations, or both. When languages come into contact with one another, it is common to find that some are more dominant than others – in some or perhaps all social spheres – and this situation often leads to efforts towards the maintenance or even rejuvenation of weaker varieties. language and assimilation, language and conflict, language and contact, language and identity, language and instrumentality, language maintenance, language and migration, language and prescriptivism, language and prestige, language revival, language and status, language and symbolism

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact
Volume 2: Multilingualism in Population Structure
, pp. 29 - 60
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acheson, Arthur. 1920. Shakespeare’s lost years in London, 1586–1592. London: Bernard Quaritch.Google Scholar
Alain de Lille, c. 1489. Doctrinale altum, seu liber parabolarum [A compendium of fundamental teachings, or, a book of proverbs]. Colon. [Cologne]: Quentell. (See An English translation of Auctores Octo, a medieval reader, by Ronald Pepin. Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1999.)Google Scholar
Barber, Charles. 1993. The English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Baugh, Albert. 1959. A history of the English language, 2nd ed. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Bugarski, Ranko. 2001. Language, nationalism and war in Yugoslavia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 151.6987.Google Scholar
Burchfield, Robert. 1987. The English language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, Donald & MacLean, Raymond. 1974. Beyond the Atlantic roar: A study of the Highland Scots. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corkery, Daniel. 1954. The fortunes of the Irish language. Cork: Mercier.Google Scholar
Dalgarno, George. 1661. Ars signorum, vulgo character universalis et lingua philosophica [The art of signs, the universal character and the philosophical language]. London: Hayes.Google Scholar
Dryden, John. 1680. The kind keeper, or, Mr Limberham. London: Bentley & Magnes.Google Scholar
Edwards, John. 1995. Multilingualism. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Edwards, John. 2009. Language and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, John. 2010a. Language diversity in the classroom. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Edwards, John. 2010b. Minority languages and group identity: Cases and categories. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Edwards, John. 2011. Challenges in the social life of language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Edwards, John. 2012. Multilingualism: Understanding linguistic diversity. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Edwards, John. 2013. Sociolinguistics: A very brief introduction. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, John & McKinnon, Margaret. 1987. The continuing appeal of disadvantage as deficit: A Canadian study in a rural context. Canadian Journal of Education 12.330–49.Google Scholar
Emerson, Oliver. 1894. The history of the English language. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (United States) (EEOC). 2012. Language access plan. Available at www.eeoc.gov/equal-employment-opportunity-commission-language-access-plan, accessed December 16, 2021.Google Scholar
Fennell, Desmond. 1981. Can a shrinking linguistic minority be saved? In Minority languages today, ed. by Haugen, Einar, McClure, John, & Thomson, Derick, 32–9. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Fishman, Joshua. 1991b. An inter-polity perspective on the relationships between linguistic heterogeneity, civil strife and per capita gross national product. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 1.518.Google Scholar
Fishman, Joshua & Solano, Frank. 1989. Cross-polity linguistic homogeneity/heterogeneity and per-capita gross national product: An empirical exploration. Language Problems and Language Planning 13.103–18.Google Scholar
Florio, John. 1578. Florio his firste fruites … London: Dawson & Woodcocke.Google Scholar
Fullerton, Robert. 1916. The prudence of St. Patrick’s Irish policy. Dublin: O’Brien & Ards.Google Scholar
Knox, Dilwyn. 1990. Ideas on gesture and universal languages, ca. 1550–1650. In New perspectives on Renaissance thought, ed. by Henry, John & Hutton, Sarah, 101–36. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Mackey, William. 1978. The importation of bilingual education models. In Georgetown University Round Table on languages and linguistics, ed. by Alatis, James, 118. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Meek, Donald. 2000. God and Gaelic: The Highland churches and Gaelic cultural identity. In Aithne na nGael – Gaelic identities, ed. by McCoy, Gordon & Scott, Maolcholaim, 2847. Belfast: Queen’s University, Institute of Irish Studies.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1964 (1861). Considerations on representative government. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Mühlhäusler, Peter. 1996. Linguistic ecology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mühlhäusler, Peter. 2000. Language planning and language ecology. Current Issues in Language Planning 1.306–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neeley, Tsedal. 2012. Global business speaks English. Harvard Business Review 90.5.116–24.Google Scholar
Nelde, Peter. 1987. Language contact means language conflict. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 8.3342.Google Scholar
Nelde, Peter. 1993. Contact or conflict? In Language conflict and language planning, ed. by Jahr, Ernst, 165–77. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Pagel, Mark. 2012. War of words. New Scientist, December 8, 38–41.Google Scholar
Pandit, Prabodh. 1979. Perspectives on sociolinguistics in India. In Language and society, ed. by McCormack, William & Wurm, Stephen, 5571. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Pattanayak, Debi. 1986. On being and becoming bilingual in India. In The Fergusonian impact, ed. by Fishman, Joshua, Tabouret-Keller, Andrée, Clyne, Michael, Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju, & Abdulaziz, Mohammed, 119–36. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Pool, Jonathan. 1972. National development and language diversity. In Advances in the sociology of language, vol. 2, ed. by Fishman, Joshua, 213–30. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Steiner, George. 1975. After Babel. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Steiner, George & Ladjali, Cécile. 2003. Éloge de la transmission: le maître et l’ élève. Paris: Albin Michel.Google Scholar
Titley, Alan. 2000. A pocket history of Gaelic culture. Dublin: O’Brien.Google Scholar
Trevelyan, George Macaulay. 1965. A shortened history of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Tucker, James. 2013. The battle over bilingual ballots. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Waterman, John. 1966. A history of the German language. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Wyatt, M. 2005. The Italian encounter with Tudor England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Yates, Frances. 1934. John Florio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×